As I continue to practice and work in communications, I feel that my clients and peers are inundated with ‘how-to-guides’, best practices, and all the hacks and strategies we are supposed to follow. Instead of offering yet another weekly “this is what you SHOULD do,” I am repositioning “A Shot of Purpose” to a research journal of bi-weekly reflections on business, communications, and being human. I hope that the questions that are emerging through my research and work will lead to some new insights and avenues of inquiry for you.
To me, this work is fundamental to practicing different ways of thinking and knowing that will lead to groundbreaking strategies and build world-leading brands.
For this first entry, we will focus on curiosity – not as a strategy.
Curiosity is one of my personal core values and an important anchor for the work we do at .beyondcomms. In every aspect of my work and life, I strive to lead with curious inquiry and exploration.
The birth of my son a few months ago has brought the importance of curiosity into sharp focus again. There has been a lot to learn about him, myself, and how my relationships change and evolve.
Across my recent listening, reading, and observation, I have been coming across curiosity, not as a personality trait or value, but as a way of being with uncertainty.
Clarity doesn’t arrive through force or urgency, but through curious companionship. We don’t think our way into meaning alone – we breathe our way into it, together.
This suggestion feels very much at odds with how modern businesses operate. I notice how we often fetishize passion, speed, money, and time.
Clarity becomes something that we extract, rather than letting it emerge by staying in the process long enough.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast episode on On Being reminded me that perhaps the most radical practice is gentle, democratic, non-coercive curiosity.
When I scroll through my social media feeds, the fetishization of urgency, answers, data, and quick fixes practically screams in my face. I can’t help feeling rushed and behind in this era of hypercapitalism, when I see others value how much money they can make in the shortest amount of time.
I am inundated with explanations on how to break into lucrative niches, calls to focus my attention on only one or two speciality fields, and guides on how to optimize my life and schedule to the second.
When reading Lugones Coloniality and Gender, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to how much we dissociate in business. It’s unsettling to read just how much colonialisation altered existing structures and suppressed change, simply through acts of classification and quantification. Are we not doing the same in business every day – quantify, categorize, and analyse profit and loss sheets, performance, and schedules to make seemingly “better” (or perhaps more profitable) decisions?
In large corporations, departments are niches, reports provide the basis for strategy, and entire consulting companies are dedicated to optimizing performance, profits, and reputation.
For entrepreneurs building a business, the “name of the game” is often how fast can you scale and raise or make money to keep growing. Leadership in both cases often focuses on creating strategies that are quantifiable, measurable, and can be achieved in the shortest amount of time.
I have fallen prey to this in my own work, valuing control and certainty over clarity and companionship. There are economic realities we all have to live with. However, I wonder:
If we were to embrace the quiet and welcoming spirit of curiosity, could we not create or alter businesses to embrace the sense of wonder, discovery, and innovation that comes with pursuing a path that might not yet be fully illuminated?
Would a curious employee who seeks, questions, and observes not have a higher potential for ground-breaking innovation than a passionate one who relentlessly pursues one path?
Embracing the uncertainty that comes with curiosity can be scary, there is no doubt. It’s a big leap to take for leadership in a business. Is it worth it though if what lays behind the curious path is connection, companionship, and new opportunities?
I am left wondering whether curiosity is not a precursor to strategy or a strategy in itself, but rather a refusal of power structures and entrenched ways of doing and knowing – and perhaps that’s the more responsible place to start.
With curiosity,
Sebastian
PS: This research practice is ongoing and you can find the resources that have inspired this entry below. If there are any types of sources that come to your mind as you read, please share them. All is welcome, from recordings, poems, and fragments, to fully fledged podcasts, books, and journals.
If you have questions or suggestions, please reply to this email! If you know of someone who might enjoy this content, share A Shot of Purpose with them.
Sources:
Akomolafe, Bayo.
On Grief, Failure, and Staying with the Trouble. Podcast conversation.
(Referenced through ideas of curiosity, companionship, refusal of urgency, and non-coercive ways of knowing.)
Gilbert, Elizabeth.
Choosing Curiosity Over Fear. Interview on On Being with Krista Tippett.
(Referenced in relation to curiosity as a gentle, democratic, non-coercive practice.)
https://onbeing.org/programs/elizabeth-gilbert-choosing-curiosity-over-fear-may2018/
Lugones, María.
Coloniality and Gender. Hypatia, 22(1), 2008.
(Referenced in relation to classification, quantification, and imposed systems of knowing.)